Siu Lun, a native of Chaoyang in Guangdong and a cousin of the celebrated Chaozhou opera performer Siu Nam-ying, was born in Tianjin and moved with her family first to Shanghai and soon afterwards to Shantou. After finishing secondary school there her love of acting led her into Chaozhou opera troupes and a Chaozhou opera training school. In 1955 she became a leading performer with the Chung Yat Ji Heung Chaozhou opera troupe in Bangkok, run by So Sing-wan, before finally settling in Hong Kong; she spoke Teochew, Mandarin and Cantonese. As the reform of Chaozhou opera in the late 1950s gave rise to Teochew-dialect cinema, with Hong Kong as its main production base and Singapore, Malaya and Thailand its biggest markets, Siu Lun joined the wave. Small and sweet-looking, she made her screen debut as the child role An-an in Lu Lin Hui (1960, from Man Sing), and soon after toured Thailand for more than a month with the film, performing with Chung Yat Ji Heung in pieces including An-an Seeks His Mother, A Proposal in the Plum Grove and Tao Hua Jie. Returning to female roles on screen, she appeared in Lian Xiang's Embroidered Shoes (1960) and The Emperor's Daughter (1961), then took the lead in Romance of the Iron Bow and Qiu Xin Nu (both 1961), touring Singapore and Malaya for nearly two months as the films opened and building her name across Southeast Asia. After finishing Han Wengong in the Snow (1962) she founded the Tsing Shan Film Company and made the then-rare modern-dress Teochew film Chaozhou Sao (1963) as its leading lady, followed by San Niang Jiao Zi (1963), in which she again played a child role in reverse casting. Having worked early on for Tung Shan and Zhongyi, she later cooperated with Chiu Chiu and Eng Wah, making more than ten Teochew films in all.
Siu Lun moved from the Chaozhou opera stage to Teochew-dialect cinema, playing child roles in reverse casting and founding her own company to make the then-rare modern-dress subject Chaozhou Sao, and twice toured Southeast Asia with her films. She was a familiar face for Hong Kong Teochew pictures in the Singapore, Malaya and Thailand markets in the early 1960s, her career reflecting the genre's shift from opera adaptation towards contemporary themes.
Achievements
- 1960 · Made her screen debut as the child role An-an in Lu Lin Hui
- 1961 · Starred in Romance of the Iron Bow and Qiu Xin Nu, touring Singapore and Malaya with the films
- 1963 · Founded the Tsing Shan Film Company and starred in the modern-dress Teochew film Chaozhou Sao